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The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

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Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#141

Post by toast0 »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #135
toast0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, US carriers already turned off 2G and are turning 3G off real soon now. If your phone doesn't do VoLTE and wants to do a voice call, that won't work when 3G is turned off.

AT&T takes it a step further. Only if my phone does do VoLTE and AT&T puts it on their magic whitelist (which you can bet, for example, is not going to have the PinePhone on it) am I going to be able to use my phone at all on AT&T's network (well, at least that's my understanding). Other carriers might not have a whitelist though—but I'm not sure.

I recall T-Mobile used to be pretty uptight about using band X for LTE only for VoLTE phones because they wouldn't be able to go from data to dialing 911 if they only had band X coverage (it was better for TMo if the user had no coverage in that case for regulatory reasons), but I think TMo is less strict about what phones they'll provision for VoLTE. I only remember trouble getting my first LTE phone to work, but LTE was newish; once I got a TMo firmware on it, it would provision and unlock whatever band it was I was trying to use, even though the IMEI would have been for an ATT model.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#142

Post by least »

kgarten wrote: post #26

Switched to GrapheneOS with the Pixel 5. Email/Calendar integration works fine (K-9 Mail). Signal as instant messenger. Organic Maps as Map application. Replaced Apple Watch with GadgetBridge and a Mi 6 band (cheaper and I have easy access to all data, you need to sync once with their app after you get the key you can delete it ... did the setup on the iphone and copied out the key with a commandline python script fr…

> AntennaPod is equally amazing as a podcast client (I prefer it to overcast switching from the iPhone).

I tried installing this on an amazon fire tablet i have lying around. It seems nice but the variable speed and better processing of sped up audio on overcast is what makes me prefer it over other podcast players and the sped up audio on this player is awful.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#143

Post by mariusor »

chrisseaton wrote: post #20
Apocryphon wrote: post #13

What about some other projects beyond Android and Linux? Sailfish OS? Tizen? KaiOS? Technically even WebOS was open-sourced and still around as LuneOS, but its last update was Halloween 2019, so it's likely defunct.

> Sailfish OS? Tizen? Those projects were a bizarre affair. There was I think Maemo, Moblin, LImo, SLP, Bada, Leste, MeeGo, Mer, Tizen, Sailfish, Nemo... all forks, merges, reforks of the same thing. They seemed to spend all their time and energy continually rebranding, forming and disbanding consortiums, creating new websites and logos. They never just got on with it. Ridiculous wasted effort when the market was pos…

You seem to be talking from a position of ignorance at least when it comes to Jolla and Sailfish OS. The former is probably the best non-mainstream mobile OS that can be used today.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#144

Post by goffi »

betwixthewires wrote: post #124

I just want to address 2 gripes I have with the article. 1) AOSP, not ASOP, you even spelled out the acronym and made this mistake twice, 2) OSM is phenomenal. OSM maps are not bad. IMO the accuracy, even in the US, is better than Google, particularly in rural areas. There's this project https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation also that bundles in address data from OpenAddresses, plugging what is the biggest ga…

I find OSM pretty good for POI actually. I'm using OSMAnd~ (the F-Droid version), and more often than not I can find directly a shop or restaurant by name without Internet activated. It's also great to find practical things like water point, transport station, etc. In some rare cases though, I can't find something, in which case I'm looking elsewhere and use coordinates which is easy to do with the sharing system of Android.

Speaking of transports, OSMAnd has a beta transport mapping for a while which is working quite well by my experience (use in combination of Transportr which is also really good, depending on the city where I am, one may be better than the other).

The only important missing thing is indeed traffic information, but depending on where you're living, it may not be such a big deal.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#145

Post by usr1106 »

m4rtink wrote: post #133
usr1106 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it. You can feel their severe development resource constraints everwhere. The browser is years behind. Native apps are rather limited. I bought the newest supported hardware 3.5 years ago. It is stuck at Android 4.4, which is supported by fewer and fewer apps. Whenever they support new HW, it takes quite a while to stabilize. Not sure what is the situation right now. My guess would be the newest supported HW is…

Latest supported hardware is Xperia 10 II, which is still quite recently and pretty fast (I got it myself). Also, you can get the previously supported Xperia devices cheaply second hand. Just make sure it has an unlockable bootloader or else you won't be able to install Sailfish OS on it.

> Also, you can get the previously supported Xperia devices cheaply second hand

While they are still decent hardware that advice is useful only for purists that don't intend to use Android at all. As I wrote, you get only Android 4.4 on those devices.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#146

Post by mpol »

usr1106 wrote: post #145
m4rtink wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latest supported hardware is Xperia 10 II, which is still quite recently and pretty fast (I got it myself). Also, you can get the previously supported Xperia devices cheaply second hand. Just make sure it has an unlockable bootloader or else you won't be able to install Sailfish OS on it.

> Also, you can get the previously supported Xperia devices cheaply second hand While they are still decent hardware that advice is useful only for purists that don't intend to use Android at all. As I wrote, you get only Android 4.4 on those devices.

Android 4.4 support is only an issue for the Xperia X. The Xperia XA2, 10 and 10II have updated support, first at Android 8, I think it is now at Android 9.

The Xperia X is somewhat tricky in this regard. It uses the "old" way of Android support. Android 8 and 9 is supported with an LXC container. Bringing that to the Xperia X would mean reflashing. Then you end up in the situation where some users reflash, and some stay on the old flash-image. Which needs another choice; support both groups, or drop all users of the old 4.4 image.

I do understand the disappointment if you have an Xperia X and see all other devices get updated Android support. But Jolla here is between a rock and a hard place.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#147

Post by Vinnl »

jraph wrote: post #128
Vinnl wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but you were talking about "even if you don't have the Play Services on your phone", which is what I'm worried about - but OK, if it's just because there's a chance it might be running, then I'm not too afraid of that.

At the risk of laboring the point, I'm talking about the piece of code embedded in the Signal application, that tries to talk to the Play Services. Not the Play Services themselves. This piece of code is definitely running whenever Signal is launched, "even if you don't have the Play Services on your phone". It probably does nothing significant when the Play Services are not present but still, it's there and (a small…

> It probably does nothing significant when the Play Services are not present

Right, that's the part I care about. I think there are two possible situations:

- Signal's own open source code can detect the absence of Play Services and not call out to Google's proprietary code in the first place. Great, no problem there.

- Google's proprietary code attempts to use Play Services and doesn't do anything when it's not present. In that case I do indeed trust Google enough that I wouldn't expect it to actually do anything else, i.e. the first option you mention.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#148

Post by Grazester »

NexRebular wrote: post #69
Apocryphon wrote: post #13

What about some other projects beyond Android and Linux? Sailfish OS? Tizen? KaiOS? Technically even WebOS was open-sourced and still around as LuneOS, but its last update was Halloween 2019, so it's likely defunct.

Sadly it seems that everything is based on linux beyond Android. Wish there were more choices kernel-wise.

Fear not fuchsia is coming along nicely.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#149

Post by usr1106 »

mpol wrote: post #146
usr1106 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, you can get the previously supported Xperia devices cheaply second hand While they are still decent hardware that advice is useful only for purists that don't intend to use Android at all. As I wrote, you get only Android 4.4 on those devices.

Android 4.4 support is only an issue for the Xperia X. The Xperia XA2, 10 and 10II have updated support, first at Android 8, I think it is now at Android 9. The Xperia X is somewhat tricky in this regard. It uses the "old" way of Android support. Android 8 and 9 is supported with an LXC container. Bringing that to the Xperia X would mean reflashing. Then you end up in the situation where some users reflash, and some…

The problem is not reflashing, we all have flashed the first time, we could do it again. The problem is kernel support. There is no new enough kernel for Xperia X hardware. For obvious reasons Sailfish does not have resources to port a kernel for a 3-4 year old device. Not sure whether source is even available from Sony for all drivers.

https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/core-... A 4.4 kernel would be required, but there is only 3.10.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#150

Post by chrisseaton »

mariusor wrote: post #143
chrisseaton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sailfish OS? Tizen? Those projects were a bizarre affair. There was I think Maemo, Moblin, LImo, SLP, Bada, Leste, MeeGo, Mer, Tizen, Sailfish, Nemo... all forks, merges, reforks of the same thing. They seemed to spend all their time and energy continually rebranding, forming and disbanding consortiums, creating new websites and logos. They never just got on with it. Ridiculous wasted effort when the market was pos…

You seem to be talking from a position of ignorance at least when it comes to Jolla and Sailfish OS. The former is probably the best non-mainstream mobile OS that can be used today.

Not sure which bit you think is ignorant.

> The OS is an evolved continuation of the Linux MeeGo OS previously developed by alliance of Nokia and Intel which itself relies on combined Maemo and Moblin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS#History_and_develo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo#/media/File:Mer_and_mobi...

Ridiculous series of merges and forks.

Sailfish's market share is so low it doesn't seem to be measurable.

When these projects were at their peak there was just about a way for them into the market. There isn't now. If they spent their time working on just one branding of these projects instead of creating yet another new name, website, and icon they might have gotten somewhere.

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